Government Secrecy @ Your Library

Presentation for LIS 610By Gwen SinclairMarch 5, 2014

“The term ‘government secrecy’ … has a kind of foreboding resonance. Nothing would be so alien to our form of government as pervasive secrecy, for people cannot govern themselves if they cannot know the actions of their government.”

Elliott Richardson, Attorney General under President Nixon

Types of government secrecy

• National security• Political• Bureaucratic

Steven Aftergood, Federation of American Scientists

National Security: Military and Intelligence Agencies

• National Reconnaissance Office• CIA• National Security Agency enabling

legislation• Defense Intelligence Agency• Leaks

National Security: Geospatial Data

• Satellite imagery• Utilities and water supplies

– USGS CD-ROM

• Military installations• Building plans

National Security: Congress

• The “black budget”• Treaties• Classified bills• Reports requested by Congress

National Security: Scientific and Technical

• Secret patents • NRC, DoD, DOE reports after 9/11• LANL technical reports• EPA risk management plans for industrial

facilities • Pentagon study on U.S. biopreparedness• NASA technical reports

National Security: The President

• Executive orders• Presidential policy directives• National security directives• Not subject to FOIA• Presidential libraries

National Security: Classification

• Policy set by president• Classification schedules

– Top Secret– Secret– Confidential– Restricted Data (Dept. of Energy)

• Declassification: how long does it take? List• Freedom of Information Act exemptions• Reclassifications: DOE, DoD, Dept. of State nuclear arsenal publications

Political Secrecy: Congress• Secret sessions

– Impeachment proceedings– Consideration of treaties in the Senate

• Congressional Research Service reports – Issued case-by-case– Speech or debate clause of the Constitution: “…for any

Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.”

• Congress is not subject to FOIA• Congressional papers

• Diplomatic Records and Treaties – Foreign Relations of the United States– Treaties

• Centers for Disease Control– AIDS prevention and condoms

• Climate change research

Political Secrecy: Executive Branch

Bureaucratic Secrecy:Internal Use Only

• IRS history of criminal investigations

• SEC Matters under Investigation– Chiquita Corp

• Law enforcement manuals• FBI’s Freedom of

Information/Privacy Acts Manual

• Trade secrets

Bureaucratic Secrecy:We’re not responsible

• End-of-term transition• Web archiving• Social media

Bureaucratic Secrecy:Cultural Property;

Privacy

• Archaeological sites• Census records• ERIC documents• Department of Hawaiian Home Lands

records• Bureau of Indian Affairs • Research data – human subjects

Freedom of Information Act• FOIA administered by individual

agencies – procedures vary– variability in redactions

• Presidents direct FOIA policy• Only applies to Executive Branch

agencies• FOIAonline

Freedom of Information Act• Where can you read documents once released?

– FOIA reading rooms• Subscription-based collections of

FOIA/declassified documents– Digital National Security Archive (ProQuest)– Declassified Documents (Gale)– ProQuest microfiche collections

Organizations monitoring government secrecy

• Center for Effective Government• Federation of American Scientists• National Security Archive• OpenTheGovernment.org• Sunlight Foundation

What are librarians doing? • GPO archiving partnerships

– Cybercemetery (UNT)

• Web harvesting• Lobbying Congress • FOIA requests

• Free Government Information

Questions?